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Freewheeling Their Way to Athens: A Q&A with Yo La Tengo

by Alexander Dimitropoulos
01/11/2008

After being together for 23 years, Yo La Tengo must have some interesting stories. Their fans must have some interesting questions. On Monday, Jan. 14 at the Melting Point, those two things will come together.

On this, the second leg of their “Freewheeling” tour, the Hoboken, N.J. band will play stripped down sets that include the cover songs for which the band is known, a dialogue with the audience and a set that will be almost as much of a surprise for the band itself as it will be for attendees.

Yo La Tengo has contributed songs to several movies, including Shortbus and the score to The Sounds of the Sounds of Science, a collection of undersea documentaries by Jean Painlevé. They also perform for WFMU’s annual fundraiser in which they play their best, on-the-spot version of whatever covers paying listeners select to support the non-commercial N.J. radio station. This tradition is a testament to their musical prowess, deep knowledge of popular (and not so popular) music and their ability to make themselves look foolish for a good cause.

Athens Exchange talked with bassist James McNew, who first recorded with the band on 1992’s May I Sing With Me and also recorded solo as Dump, Jan. 8 in a phone interview. Read on to find out more about the current tour, Yo La Tengo’s two-song contribution to the I’m Not There Bob Dylan film and a couple of McNew’s fondest memories from Athens. He also shares how he met Kurt Wagner, a member of Lambchop who will perform solo at the same Melting Point concert. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the music starts at 8:30 p.m.

AE: How much of the “Freewheeling” tour is planned going in?

JM: Aside from, like, booking the shows and hotels, not much.

AE: So does it always have you on electric bass, and then Georgia with brushed drums and then Ira with acoustic [guitar]?

JM: Pretty much. Unless we decide to switch instruments, which happens sometimes.

AE: And then I read somewhere that you were trying not to repeat any covers throughout the tour. Is that true?

JM: We really kind of haven’t. It’s kind of almost like we haven’t had to try not to repeat them. I think each night is just different. We don’t know what’s going to happen going in, and I can’t really think of one that we’ve repeated. There have been nights where we’ve done two sets in one evening where we did not repeat a single song between the two shows [with] each set containing roughly 20-some songs.

AE: And does it cull from the entire catalog?

JM: It does.

AE: Even The Sounds of the Sounds of Science?

JM: We haven’t gotten there yet. We haven’t been able to quite come up with an adequate representation of an acoustic take on some of those songs. I had considered writing lyrics, like kind of making it, I guess that would be a libretto? I think that would be a nice presentation, but that would take too much work.

AE: So are these concerts freeing in any way? Because you’ve never really been associated with a formulaic live show, or song, or album or arc across albums.

JM: I’m sorry, are the shows what?

AE: Are they freeing in any way? To have this format?

JM: Kind of. In a way they are, and in a way they’re more difficult. We did, I guess, more than several of these freewheeling dates in the fall, which are just unscripted and totally spontaneous, and then we played the eight shows over Hanukkah at Maxwell’s, and we would write set lists for those every night. And in a way, it was a real relief to kind of be able to look at a piece of paper and remember what’s coming next and what I had to get ready for. So, I’m not sure whether the set list is a crutch or not, but there is something that’s pretty fun about going out on stage and having zero idea about what’s about to happen.

AE: So are the sets generally shorter because of the dialogue with the audience?

JM: No.

AE: No.

JM: [laughs]. No, they’re not. If anything, they’re longer. Basically, we’ll decide what song to play first, we’ll go onstage and play it, and that’s it for prepared material. It just all varies.

AE: And people jump in whenever they want?

JM: Well, we hope that they won’t jump in in the middle of a song. But other than that, yes.

AE: So is it a little like the WFMU things?

JM: No, it’s not quite like that. People have to pay for those songs, amazingly enough. The WFMU things, I think, are almost more of a sort of, encouraging people to try to stump us and embarrass us intentionally, which hopefully won’t happen on these shows.

AE: So are these geared toward Yo La Tengo fans? Will people who haven’t heard of the band be in the dark with the stories, or not?

JM: I would hope not. Whether we give a direct, concise answer to a question about ourselves or not, I think you find out quite a bit about the band, and you find a lot about who we are, what we’re thinking. I hope not. I would certainly hope it wouldn’t be totally exclusive.

AE: Is there anything you’re tired of them asking? Or that you’d like them to ask during the performances?

JM: Probably no to both. I think I prefer to just let it fly.

AE: And I think you’re performing here with Kurt Wagner of Lambchop?

JM: That’s right.

AE: Whom I know Ira is a fan of, and were you also a big fan?

JM: Oh, yes. It’s unanimous.

AE: So how did this come together?

JM: Well, Kurt’s from Nashville, Tenn., and geographically this is a good route for him. Plus, we love playing with him and with Lambchop any chance we can get. It’s been too long since we’ve done anything together. And plus, I’ve never heard him play solo. So, I’m really interested to see how it goes. I always love to hear the songs that he writes.

AE: You record in Nashville, right?

JM: That’s, right. We do.

AE: So did you meet him there?

JM: I think we actually met him for the first time a long time ago. Merge Records did a like a fifth anniversary weekend of concerts in Carrboro, N.C. Man, I’ll be damned if I can remember what year that was. ’94 maybe? And that’s I think the first time we had ever seen or heard of Lambchop. I think their first record was just coming out on Merge, and we were all completely flabbergasted by all 18 of them onstage. And we became friends with Kurt, and Deanna [Varagona] and Jonathan [Marx] really fast. We went down to make the Electr-O-Pura album shortly after meeting them, and it was amazing that instantly we had 18 friends in Nashville. It really worked out great. I couldn’t think of better ambassadors to that city then the people in that band.

AE: And so this is soon after you joined Yo La Tengo, right, because you joined in ’92?

JM: I think ’91.

AE: Well the first recording may have been in ’92.

JM: Oh yeah, the first recording came out in ’92. That’s right.

AE: And so did that affect Dump at all, or are they pretty much independent?

JM: They’re independent. The Dump recordings, I actually began doing that before I joined Yo La Tengo, and, certainly, I’m so lazy with the Dump recordings that it would take a lot to affect the progress of my work.

AE: And I think you all have a reputation for being pretty well informed in rock music. What are your record collections like?

JM: They’re pretty big. They’re not real, collector-y. I think we actually listen to the records that we [laughs] buy, which I guess is sacrilege to most people who have record collections the size of ours.

AE: Is it encroaching on your living space?

JM: I think over the years we’ve learned to live with it.

AE: And then for the I’m Not There covers, did you approach those with any more reverence or practice with other covers? I mean, they weren’t your first ones for films but...

JM: Todd Haynes, who directed the movie, approached us about doing one of the songs, “Fourth Time Around,” and I think we just all immediately agreed that Georgia should sing it. And then “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” we had actually been doing that at our shows before we knew about doing the soundtrack, so it was just kind of a nice coincidence. We did that one just kind of as a bonus. We didn’t really know how heavily that song was involved in the plot of the movie, so everybody was kind of surprised when we turned it in. I think we approached recording it pretty reverently because we had a really big band for those sessions. Terry Adams from NRBQ played piano, and Peter Phillips, this really great guitar player from Los Angeles played, and John Sebastian played harmonica on both tracks and Stanley Dural played Hammond organ. It was a pretty exciting day.

AE: And are there any stories or things that you remember about performances in Athens that you want to share?

JM: I remember playing with The Glands, which I was super, duper psyched about, and I wish that would happen again because I really miss that band. There was really nothing like them. That and finding a vinyl copy of the second Silver Apples record at Todd’s store [Low Yo Yo Stuff] was also very exciting. But I would have to say The Glands win out.

AE: And then is there anything that you want to tell the readers or fans of Yo La Tengo who might come to the show in Athens?

JM: I would just kind of tell them to read the stuff that I already said.

AE: OK.

JM: [laughs].

AE: All right, thanks so much.

JM: Sure thing.

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